Regarding the ads: I’ve been curious about the AA ad campaign, as I assume the ick-factor was sure to be raising some hackles. As it turns out, no fewer than five bona fide porn stars have appeared in AA ads, and probably many more than that.

I still giggle at the look on my daughter’s face when she came home from school one day saying, “Mommy I have to show you teh coolest cutestet video evah!” When she brought it up I went, “MARUUUUU!” She was all, “how do you know this cat’s name?” I then let her in on the fact that Mommy is a Cute Overload Peep and is actually in the know of what’s hot in Cuteness. Now when she has something to show me she always asks, “or should I bother, have you seen it on CO first?” And now, whenever I’m on CO if she or my son notice they always ask, “any new Maru or Winston or Simon’s Cat videos Mommy?”

My kittehs don’t have have a “please open howl” since they’re quite capable of opening doors themselves. They have, however, an incredibly sweet “Greeting their sister” chirp followed by a headbump. Which makes more then up for it in my opinion :)

Maru’s crys remind me of the old “Ma-ma” dolls. My big old floofie Tux speaks this same language , “more kibble” accompanied by look at the top of the freezer, “I’m home” “Let me out” plus the long explanation of what he’s done that day and what he’s see. “Moe me miaow mow ee”

On a related note, apparently the softcore Abercrombie & Fitch catalog is coming out again. So to speak. Apparently the gay blogosphere is rejoicing.

Either way, never are as bad as those old Calvin Klein commcerials by Bruce Weber. Models who look like teens shot in a wood paneled room that looked like an old basement responding to the unseen voice of the guy shooting the camera. Beyond creepy!

I thought my cat Kali was the only one that tells the world she has game every night she has lots of toys with feathers and she meows all the way up the stars while she has her toy in her mouth and in the morning there sometimes as many as 7 to 9 toys in the linving room floor and she has to tell every one every time she brings every toy up and she VERY LOUD! about it, sometimes it amazes me what she drages up those steps and what she thinks is game.

My 15 year old cat Miss Isis has the same meow when she makes a kill. BUT since she’s been an indoor cat all her life she doesn’t hunt live prey, not even bugs in the house. The only things Miss Isis hunts are socks! If we live socks on the floor she will “hunt” them, “kill” them and then meow until we tell her: You killed it, good girl!
Then she will drop the sock and walk around feeling very proud of herself. :-)

I heart Maru. And he is so polite! When my kittehs want to have a random door opened for no reason, they do not politely meow atit…no, they howl and then start throwing themselves against it. I must have them enroll in Maru’s School of Kitteh Ettiquette. Kittehquette?

I left a steak out by accident and she stalked the thing on the counter top during the dark of night. Then flung the flailing thing down to the kitchen floor where they fought. After wounded the celophane skin in several places, she ultimately delivered the killing bite bite on the corner before nibbling on her prize.

In the morning light she meowed and pokes at me several times before I got up and followed out to the kitchen. Where she proudly stood besides her “gift” of dead prey.

What could I do but praise her for her uncompromising hunting prowess?

HEY, WAIT, NOT SO FAST! those (and other Google ads) pay the bills for a lot of very nice people! i might be out of line here, but the advertiser PAYS every time you CLICK on their ads AND that increases the value of C.O.! so click with your eyes closed if you must and click (and shop) at the places you do like!

Huh. I watch cat videos all the time, and my cats have never paid a whit of attention – until this one. One of them was napping on top of a bookshelf, and she perked right up and looked over in my direction, trying to find the strange cat that she could hear but not smell.

Jessica, I understand that Maru is a Scottish Fold with upright ears. The breed description includes:

“The Fold is a medium cat with a rounded, well-padded body. The tail should be flexible. It has large, round, broadly spaced eyes full of sweetness; well-rounded whisker pads and a short nose with a gentle curve in profile.”

This is a pretty accurate description of our friend Maru. I think if you are used to cats with a more streamlined build, he could look overweight. But some cats have a natually more rounded build, sometimes categorized as “cobby,” and this does not mean they are fat. I’ve seen pictures of Maru all wet after a bath, and he is not overweight. :-)

BTW I love his cute little voice! It did sound like he was saying “Maru” or “Mama” a couple of times! ♥

@Jaime!!! Me too!!!!! I’ve been coming to C.O. for YEARS, never commented and watched tons of kitteh vids but with this I had to! Never have my meow meows paid attention!!! They were both super disturbed/perturbed/excited/quizzical over Maru’s meowing/whining!!! I’ve never seen them do that before!

Enh. I’ve heard better. (RIP Peaseblossom 1988-2010, a good, long life for the most talkative cat in the whole world). Maru is a lovely jumper-into-and-out-of-boxes-and-bags, and it’s nice to put a voice to the face, but he’s no Long Don Johnson. My Baby could say my name (“Howard!”), and you know how difficult terminal consonants are for cats.

Unless, of course, Maru’s speaking fluent Japanese, and exceeds the ability of his human host to translate. I’d believe it. Any Japanese speakers care to translate?

:lol: When Maru caught his “game”, he was meowing just like a mother cat calling her kittens to come and eat their dinner :lol: Maru must think his owner/owners are not getting enough food to eat :lol:

Every night my cat brings all 5 of his toys to my bedroom making the loudest noise sounding like Helllooo. He brings them to the side of my bed. In the morning I take them back to his ‘toy basket’. I have NEVER seen him take an interest in them during the day. I love that he does it. I plain out love him.
Maru sounds just as I would imagine him to sound. Not too sissy, not too bold

If Maru’s voice is like a wimpy girl’s, than my big orange & white boy sounds like a little baby kitten! Seriously, at times if you heard him but didn’t see him, you would think he was a widdle kitten instead of a big tom cat!

As far as Maru’s “house” – it looks like an office to me. Maybe the guardian takes him to work, or lives and works in the same place…?

Sorry to be so stupid…but, that ‘toy’ he was playing with. He kept putting his paw on it like it was a live. It was stuffed, yes?
I love the meowing with it in his mouth. Reminded me of when my Stinky came in the house with that kind of a meow…and proceeded to let it a field mouse out of his mouth…not quite a gonner at that time. He did finised it off…after I got on the table. :>)

@Mpls Deb :lol: Our kitty, Dooley, caught a mouse on the headboard of my bed :lol: He was a gentleman to take said mouse out of my room, go upstairs and then proceed to pound the stuffings out of it :lol: I just called after him “Thank you, Dooley, for getting rid of that mouse.” :lol: I watched some TV for a half hour before going upstairs to remove the mouse’s body from the house :lol:

My cats also have that triumphant hunting call whenever they have “caught” a toy mouse or something. They carry their toys into whichever room I am in and yowl to let me know that they are mighty hunters.

tblue: Yeah. I think they do that on purpose though just to make us say things like, “Oh! Oh my goodness! How powerful you are!” (they’re all, “watch me control this human. check this out, Larry!”. snicker, snicker behind the paw) Then they probably laugh behind our backs at how stupid and easily manipulated we are, just for fun for them. :) At least, that’s what I think my cat does. :)

We actually named our res-cute kitty “Lahara” because of the resemblance of her long, loud “mmrrrooooooowwwwww” to the lahar sirens that are spread throughout the valley here to warn people in the event of mudflows (“lahars”) from Mt. Rainier. She also has an urgent cry that we refer to as her “Timmy fell down the well again” meow. And when she wants in the bedroom at night she starts off with a loud, questioning “MEOWW??” If we tell her “NO!” she responds with a little itty bitty “mew??” Like, “but…but…why not?” Needless to say, she cracks us up on a daily basis.

@Teresa…I totally understand about pound the stuffing out of it. One time Stinky caught a mouse (during the middle of the night mind you) For a good 30 mins. All we heard was run run run, thump. meow. run run run, thump. meow. Then he would growl at it because it wouldn’t get up and run anymore. Man, I miss him. Picture a Main Coon with a Garfield personality.
We brought home a flatcoat retriever, Maggie. Stinky had been numero uno for a long time. Well, Maggie was just a big clumsy puppy. One day, this is the total truth..Maggie came running through the house, Stinky stuck his front paw out and she somersaulted across the dining room. It was so funny. If I had had a video of that, America’s Funniest Home Videos would have loved it.

if my mom’s cats couldn’t bring home a formerly live something (shrew, mole, mouse, chipmungk, lizard, snake) for my mom to “eat” they’d bring home a pinecone. hated to show up empty-handed
i may be wrong, when when i translated “maru” to english i got
“zero” “circle” “full” “perfection” “unity”

lololol…. ok, so it took me 3 days to play this at home for my cats… what a hoot… 8 of the 11 came to see what the heck was going on – never do I have that many in the same room at one time (except gooshy food time in the morning), and there was a lot of vocalising going on. ah good times, good times…

@ Rooanne — It looks like a house to me. Some pictures have shots of a kitchen or couch, or a porch and yard. It’s just that the futon gets put up during the day.
@ Jill — We don’t know for sure, but I suspect Maru’s owner is a she. The language would be unusually polite for a guy. Even Maru’s “voice” is more masculine. :)

Two of my cats were looking around the room for Maru when they heard him talking. Some of those cat words are universal. The “open the door” meow is heard quite often around here. “I found an insect” is also a popular one.